Chrono Trigger Resurrection Update

The team has posted some impressive new screens, and even a trailer, but are forced to stop development.

The small development team behind fan game Chrono Trigger: Resurrection has posted some very disappointing news: they have received a Cease and Desist letter from Square Enix demanding they stop making their game. It seems after years of looking the other way, Square Enix has changed its policy on independently-created games honoring their own.

Perhaps it was the quality of the project that triggered this unprecedented response so far into development. Chrono Trigger Resurrection sports professional quality artwork that has further improved since its last showing. Here are a few samples of what you will now never be able to play:

The Chrono Trigger Resurrection site also has a trailer showcasing a few scripted scenes:

It truly is a shame the lawyers have interfered with something so promising. The team is not swayed, though, and is already planning something “new and fresh.” Our sympathies go out to everyone who worked so hard on this game, only to have to walk away:

This is the most horrible thing ever to happen to the industry. The 2nd would be the demise of the great empire Nintendo.

I'm going to sign a petition against S-E's choice to stop this. What if they hired these guys or something? I've been waiting for this game and it's more and better than I ever expected. See, what's w/ this American attitude of u can do anything you want? U just have the have the money (Howard Zinn, The People's History of the United States). And it seems that power is held by people who have money. Why would S-E do something like this? The industry needs competition and the only RPG competition for S-E is Namco, good luck there. Only ToS and ToP are really worth it (well I haven't played the other Tales of Games) and Skies is a cool game too, but it seems S-E is trying to pull a Microsoft here and have an RPG monopoly (rhyme intended).

Petitions don't do jack. And Square Enix only has a monopoly in the sense that they're the only large developer/publisher dedicated to RPGs (and the only publisher associated with console RPGs).

Other large publishers do put out RPGs, they just don't push their products hard enough. Namco seems to see opportunity in RPGs, but isn't willing to spend the big bucks on TV ads. Nintendo's doing more RPG content lately (Golden Sun, Mario RPGs), that KotOR game is pretty popular, and let's not forget Atlus.

not meaning to be the guy who puts salt on you guy's wounds guys but I mean come on this and that 2d ocrina of time were both illeagal projects, that would be like some small band of upstarts forming a company and making a new Kid Icarus title for the XBOX hardware, and I'm pretty sure everyone would be quite pissed about that, especially the people who are the creators of the game (nintendo), so it was only a matter of time before this happend, and besides remember square did have that poll asking what game they would like to see remade on the DS and I'm more than sure chrono trigger won, so I wouldn't get too pissy yet

There is some truth to what you say, Hyuuga. However, it is also true that many songs on OC Remix, vgmusic, etc. are technically infringe on copyrights as well, and publishers tend to look the other way, since in most cases it does not compete with their product (and in fact it is free publicity).

Now, if the publisher/developer feels that it is a threat for some reason or another, and this tribute would cause some to not buy an official product (such as Zelda Collector's GC disc, or a remake of Chrono Trigger on the DS), that's another story.

No one disputes the fact that Square Enix has the right to shut down this product. We're just surprised the company would make use of their right to do so after knowing about this product for so long (and yes, Square/Square Enix was notified of this project by the creators early on).

whoops. sorry, I hadn't eaten for 12 hours and I've had stuff come up. Now that's I'm more rational, I understand, but it was REALLY professional. My thing is, why hasn't S-E hired these guys? Prob. bc S-E doesn't like the way games sell for GCN and just don't want to go there. Plz prove me wrong but don't make me out as an idiot.

They really should have made something original instead of basing their work off of someone else's. S-E is very much in the clear to shut it down - because that is not how you become good at making games.

If they want to showcase their engine, they should have made original characters for the demo of it. Otherwise, they a) did not get permission (you'd be suprised at how many fan projects get an okay from S-E when you just ask ) b) not only were they taking S-E's IP for their own use, they were also using art copyrighted to Akira Toriyama, and c) using S-E's music.

I feel no pity for them. They knew it was going to happen. Next time, ask for permission BEFORE you start.

This wasn't about showcasing an engine, it was about a fan's dream of playing Chrono Trigger in 3D. I'm not as knowledgeable on the history here, but as TYP said, I believe they notified Square early on. Either the Square-Enix merger changed their stance on the project, or they weren't expecting it to be so high quality as to compete with any future projects they might do. These guys already knew that they couldn't sell it, but were making it freely available to PC gamers and developers with console dev kits. Perhaps if they weren't making it publicly available for the PC, S-E wouldn't have bothered with it.

I believe the story is that they notified Square of their project early on (multiple times) and did not receive an official response. Not responding is a trump card--the IP owner can smite the project if they desire, and S-E did.

Sure, Squarenix has every right to put a stop to any unauthorized project using their work/characters/etc.But I would have thought SE could profit better by taking this project in with open arms, perhaps deciding to give it away as a packin/demo disk. It is a wonderful gift that has simply fallen into their lap and they instead decide to react like the jealous 5 year old who refuses to share his toy (not to stereotype any five year old out there on this board, but come on, your age group is not known for either its generosity or sound thinking).

SE had better be motivated by their own desire to revisit ChronoTrigger, but again, they certainly could have absorbed this work already being done in way everyone could have profited from.

I would be thrilled if a game I created/designed was leading to this much work over a decade later (which in video game years is a lifetime) and I really can think of no reason that could possibly justify this move.

Then again, the entirety of the story has not come out and perhaps- a very weak perhaps, but a perhaps nonetheless, SE did offer some royalty fee/co-development agreement that the Resurrection Team turned down.

I just guess we will have to wait a couple more lifetimes until the copyrights expire on these works and we can finally get some independent remakes.

This is a sad sad day for gamers everywhere. I guess the guys up at S-E got too caught up in makin money intellectual property to actually care about the fans who play their games. This is like someone making a mod for UT, and then some pissed off company sending a C and D letter to stop development. (As I recall this happened to several DBZ mods.) Petitions don't work. You want them to at least look at your opinion, you should get a friend who writes japanese pretty well(unless you can do it yourself) and send a letter from the community(a written one) to our friends up at S-E. That'll likely have more impact then a petition. It can't be any bullcrap riddled with curses and spelling mistakes. It should be a letter expressing our deepest interest in a franchise that we all know and love. But it also can't be a letter telling them "how it could be good publicity and that stuff" these guys are a bunch of Japanese business guys in suits thinking they're professionals. The last thing they need to hear is some fans halfway across the globe telling them how to run they're company. This is the only method, that I see, might actually work. But then again, this is S-E, and they might not give a crap about anything we say, so long as they keep getting our money.

I think it is perfectly acceptable for SE to ask for this project to be stopped.

The dudes making this 3d remake are aware that they are breaching IP laws. It's just that now they've been officially told to stop instead of NOT STARTING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Regardless of whether it is a good remake or as bad as they come, being told to stop because of IP law breach should not be news to these people, it should be expected.

Hopefully they place their talent into an original game idea instead of riding off the back of the talent of another company.

And Valkan, its NOTHING like making a UT mod! UT has clear and straight-forward licensing laws for UT mods.

In response to the commentry about SE taking this on board, or employing the dudes, i find that rediculous. SE has already invested vast $ in creating 3D engines for their games, why would they bother investing in a (no doubt) inefficient, amatuer engine or artist? Oh, and don't forget the language barrier... i doubt the creators of this unlicensed remake speak Japanese.

Look, seeing the potential of the legal problem is one thing, but I'm not sure why everyone's ripping into these guys. There's no doubt they knew the risks, but again, this is a project done for the love of the game. I wouldn't be surprised if they finish it privately just to play it themselves and hope they can share it with others sometime in the future.

As for that crack about them being amatuers, you don't seem to have really looked at the project at all. These guys are all professionals that do this on the side. Sure, they're a small team with limited funds and a corporate project could be more refined, but that doesn't make them amatuers. Plus, I don't what you'd consider an amatuer artist anyways -- someone that isn't making money at it? That sounds like most artists to me.

Although I would have loved to play the game/scenes. Another thing is I thought the people making this project were only doing like 6 scenes at most with only a handful of characters. And how many years have they been working on it? It looks so good because they put tons of effort and time into remaking only a few scenes. To think they could make an entire game, with an original story, as good as Chrono Trigger is pushing it. Not to mention the fact that obviously Square is going to make another Chrono game eventually. I doubt they want their franchise being milked, when they've made a point of not doing that with Chrono Trigger. Thus making each new release that much more exciting. Time to play Chrono Cross.

QuoteOriginally posted by: JubJubI think it is perfectly acceptable for SE to ask for this project to be stopped.

The dudes making this 3d remake are aware that they are breaching IP laws. It's just that now they've been officially told to stop instead of NOT STARTING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Regardless of whether it is a good remake or as bad as they come, being told to stop because of IP law breach should not be news to these people, it should be expected.

Hopefully they place their talent into an original game idea instead of riding off the back of the talent of another company.

And Valkan, its NOTHING like making a UT mod! UT has clear and straight-forward licensing laws for UT mods.

In response to the commentry about SE taking this on board, or employing the dudes, i find that rediculous. SE has already invested vast $ in creating 3D engines for their games, why would they bother investing in a (no doubt) inefficient, amatuer engine or artist? Oh, and don't forget the language barrier... i doubt the creators of this unlicensed remake speak Japanese.

It's very easy to sit there and type in a message box in a forum and call us a bunch of "amateurs", with a "(no doubt) innefficient, amateur engine" . It's also very easy to sit on your high chair like that and claim you know everything there is to know about us, our project, and the hard work we put into it.

But it also makes you look like a jack-ass. Congratulations.

To think you know everything there is to know about the team (who, by the way, contain members who are actually in the game industry) and to think you know everything there is about the engines we created and used for this demo, is not only ignorant, it's laugable. But hey, you'll always have forums to visit to make yourself feel important.

To everyone else, thank you for all of your support. Yes, we knew this day could come, yes we were dreading it every single day in the development, but we went on. We were creating it as a tribute toward a game we all adored. And, despite what some people say, it was not our entry into the games industry. We always stated, "In the unlikely event that Square Enix hire us" so, we of course were not expecting to be hired, either.

We were hoping that since this was never intended to neither make money, nor be the entire game, that they would let us continue working on it. Regardless, we are disappointed that people will never get to see the hard work that we put into this.

Anyway, thank you all for your support over the past few months. Planet GameCube has especially been good to us. If anything comes up with this issue, or if anything new happens with other projects, we'll let you know definately.

Square never heard of Fair Use I take it? Stupid bastards... I think I might just vote with my dollar on this one. I wasn't buying many Square games as it were, but I think this has just guaranteed that I will NOT be buying Final Fantasy 1&2 at the very least.

Its a crying shame; Its not like Square(enix) was doing anything with the Chrono Trigger license...

But then again, this ain't the the Square(enix) of old. Sequels and spin-offs to Final Fantasy games? Done. Heavy investment in online/mobile models? Check. No 'Cube support despite decent sales of Crystal Chronicles? 'Gotcha. Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest 8? MIA in the USA. Wait, we here on this side of the world still matter?

Good luck in the future tssf, I have a feeling you guys will have success in the coming years. I just want to clarify something too, I misread JubJub's post about "not starting in the first place" meaning I was thinking he meant SE should have told them to stop immediately, not that tssf and company should have never started it. I also do not think you guys are inefficient or amateur at all. I do think its reasonable for SE to ask them to stop, and that you guys should put your talent into an original game (by the look of your work I think you could accomplish a AAA title atleast in regards to art style, texture work, and presentation, (I haven't heard the music yet, sorry). Anyways, keep up the great work, which rivals anything out there in some respects.

QuoteIt's very easy to sit there and type in a message box in a forum and call us a bunch of "amateurs", with a "(no doubt) innefficient, amateur engine" . It's also very easy to sit on your high chair like that and claim you know everything there is to know about us, our project, and the hard work we put into it.

Yeah, I work on a small non-commercial game project, and I would like to emphasise the fact that what you guys have done is really awsome, and is definately something people from other small projects can look up to.

Grey Ninja: What has Fair Use got to do with anything? Fair Use lets you copy a copyrighted work for personal purposes, NOT make a derivative work. Creating a derivative work, for whatever purpose, without the (written) consent of the IP holder is illegal. Some people believe that it's okay as long as it's for non-commercial purposes only, but that is wrong. In other words, I'm completely aware that my avatar is infringing copyright law (okay, not the avatar itself but the matter depicted).

Square-Enix has just made a very horrible business decision. All they had to do was wave a bunch of money in these guys faces', sign a deal to make the game for them, and we would have had an awesome remake of Chrono Trigger in 3d. I can't see the harm in that. They'd make more money on it than any of their recent Final Fantasy's and we fans would be in 7th heaven. Boo, Square-Enix! Boo!

KDR, I believe that CTR was probably protected under parody law. It's the part of fair use that allows idiots like Puff Daddy to exist.

I find it incredibly hilarious that you're arguing about fair use by copying and pasting an entire article in our forums, which is strictly prohibited. Give a link to the guy's page for crying out loud. - Bloodworth

You know, I'd like to throw another thing to consider in all of this...

If S/E had something like a remake of CT in 3D or sometime in the future decided to do it, they'd have all kinds of potential for legal battles because of the folks who started working on this CTR project.

Just like OoT2D (*drool*)... if Nintendo decided, down the road, a 2D version of OoT with LttP graphics would be a good project, well, don't you know, someone already started it...

That's another reason why companies have to crack down on fan-made games, even if they aren't for profit or such... Fan-made games limit potential ideas and storylines in future games because the various companies have to look out for those who will try to claim "Hey, that was my idea! You stole it! Give me free money!"....

What part of this is a parody? It's a retelling of certain scenes, not making fun of the original game. From your link: However, the fair-use defense if successful will only be successful when the newly created work that purports itself to be parody is a valid parody. That means, no copying and claiming it's supposed to be a parody when it clearly isn't. CTR was a tribute, retelling, adaption, whatever, but no parody.

UncleBob: Well, the little ones couldn't try to sue since they never had a permission to make their adaption, anyway. Without permission (and that means explicit permission) making an adaption is a crime.

Well fine then, here's fair use straight from the US Government's mouth. (NOTE TO MODERATORS: Facts may not be copyrighted, and as a result, I am free to directly quote the link above. )

Quotethe purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

it's non-profit, and educational in the sense that all the people involved with development are learning a great deal.

Quotethe nature of the copyrighted work

a tribute.

Quoteamount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

10 scenes from the game. I would suspect them to be short scenes. None of the original artwork or code was used, meaning that story, characters, and dialog were used from the original. I would say that the amount would actually be pretty small, something akin to fanfictions.

Quotethe effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work

Given that this was not intended to be a full game, I can't see where it would do much other than to drum up some extra publicity for Chrono Trigger.

Grey: The sole fact that they created 3d adaption of concepts is already copyright infringement. A game isn't one, big work but many small ones combined. The characters are works by themselves, every piece of art in a game is a work. The concepts are works. Making a derivative work of a copyrighted work, in this case a 3d model based on a concept by Akira Toryama, is enough to cross the line. You're using the most lenient way of interpeting the law, that wouldn't hold up in court, they'd argue that "tribute" means "copy" and that just learning from doing it isn't enough for "educational use" (since you invariably learn something from making an adaption, you get better at making adaptions). That they didn't just use excepts from the characters but the whole characters. Yes, arguing semantics is exactly what's done in court, but I'm sure the other attorney could find a whole lot of points to be used against you, as well.

" I find it incredibly hilarious that you're arguing about fair use by copying and pasting an entire article in our forums, which is strictly prohibited. Give a link to the guy's page for crying out loud. - Bloodworth"

"Well fine then, here's fair use straight from the US Government's mouth. (NOTE TO MODERATORS: Facts may not be copyrighted, and as a result, I am free to directly quote the link above. )"

"NOTE TO GREY NINJA: Quoting is not against the rules, just extended quotes. Once you go over one continuous paragraph, I'm gonna start coming down on you. :-P"

Awww, it's like the family is finally back together. The mouthy rebellious son comes home and dad has to give him a verbal smacking to keep him in place. It's so beautiful it brings a tear to my eye.....

QuoteAwww, it's like the family is finally back together. The mouthy rebellious son comes home and dad has to give him a verbal smacking to keep him in place. It's so beautiful it brings a tear to my eye.....

Shut it woman.

QuoteOriginally posted by: KDR_11kGrey: The sole fact that they created 3d adaption of concepts is already copyright infringement. A game isn't one, big work but many small ones combined. The characters are works by themselves, every piece of art in a game is a work. The concepts are works. Making a derivative work of a copyrighted work, in this case a 3d model based on a concept by Akira Toryama, is enough to cross the line. You're using the most lenient way of interpeting the law, that wouldn't hold up in court, they'd argue that "tribute" means "copy" and that just learning from doing it isn't enough for "educational use" (since you invariably learn something from making an adaption, you get better at making adaptions). That they didn't just use excepts from the characters but the whole characters. Yes, arguing semantics is exactly what's done in court, but I'm sure the other attorney could find a whole lot of points to be used against you, as well.

Yes, I am not denying that some copyrighted material was used in CTR. But that's exactly my point. Fair use allows people to use copyrighted material in their own projects if it's not blatantly infringing. Fair use is a really grey area thing though, and I am saying that if it was contested in court, then CTR might very well win. They aren't doing this most likely because none of them want "copyright infringer" to go on their record. Which really really sucks. Square Enix probably knows this, and that's why they did it in the first place. And THAT is why I am currently boycotting them.

I see where your coming from Grey, I'm too pissed at SEfor doing this so late into the projects existence. Sad isn'tit? Damn them, CT:R is the best thing I've seen in a recreationof the original. It appears that anything better than what SEcan do, they automatically kill it by whatever means.

They seem to forget who buys their "stuff",do they really want to discreminate people?

I think so, must be ignorance.

What's this....? Do I smell Acclaim?

Your Next SE if you don't stop the BS and deliver something friggindecent and beyond!!!

Square enix will never die. Final Fantasy is too big of a cash cow. They could put a piece of elephant poo in a box and call it final fantast EP and it would sell a million copies in the first week. As far as chrono trigger goes, yes its sad that they stopped development of it, but most of the world didn't know about it and the only people that would've played it are hardcore fans that actually followed the progress of it. Nintendo has done the same thing in the past and so have other companies. Sooner or later the complaints will be heard and companies will allow fans of their games to pay tribute by trying to add to it and these companies should embrace what fans are doing instead of crushing their fun.

Tomb Raider died because there was little to no change between the too frequently released iterations of the series and the big game that was supposed to save it was a buggy POS (besides, there's a seventh Tomb Raider game in development). You can't tell me Final Fantasy N is just a rehash of Final Fantasy N-1.

3rdrocket: They could, but those minor projects don't mean anything to them. This one here is a major project that has proven its ability o reach a high level of quality and (unlike most fan games/mods) actually get finished. Since time spent playing CTR is time not spent playing new games CTR IS competing with SE's lineup (though one could argue that since CTR isn't a PS2 game the people who could have played it weren't SE's customers, anyway).

The late shutdown was because companies tolerate fan art to a certain degree (since telling the fans not to make fan art would just make them angry) and the less they C&D the better. Fan projects have a tendency to fall apart long before they finish anything playable so Square-Enix just assumed this one wouldn't reach completion, either. Then they saw that this team could actually pull it off and that CTR isn't going away without their intervention, so S-E sent a C&D letter.

I think KDR's paragraph above sums up my feelings. It sucks that Square Enix didn't do something sooner so that the team members didn't spend so much time on the project, but I think the company is well within it's rights, and I can't blame the company for protecting itself from such an ambitious project. I don't think this game actually posed any real threat to Square-Enix, but in a world gone sue-happy, I can't blame companies for taking steps to avoid tougher legal battles later on.

Wow, Magus_Forever dug this thread up! Yes, everyone has the same feelings. Unless I see some sort of Chrono Trigger 3D remake announcement at E3 this year, Square Enix is just being anal. I mean, how many fan-made Zelda knock-offs are there floating around the internet?

Wow, I learned about this way too late. I had heard about this a long time ago, but never saw anything like screenshots. This stuff looked amazing, and I honestly hope that S-E takes this idea and develops it fully: I've been waiting ages, and I mean AGES, for someone to take a classic game like that, or even FF3, and just re-animate the whole game into fully-3D graphics. There are so many games that could take this and do it and I think it may even work out well. But we have to remember the interface: Some games are built specifically on their Interface and we can't let that slip for pretty graphics and amazing renders.

Chrono Trigger just happened to be one of those games where the 3-D Rendering took off: An amazing game with an excelling story, great amount of replay and practically a small cult following. I think, though, that the companies of some of these games (I'm thinking along the lines of Secret of Mana and Zelda: Link to the Past) should perhapse look into the market of re-rendering their games, with similar viewpoints and control, but entering them into the realm of Full 3D.

I applaud the group who began the creation of CT:R, and I hope they look into completing the idea through communications with S-E, or perhapse approaching other companies with ideas on other games that may be worth investing in to bring to 3-D. I also look forward to any new projects they've been working on.